SRCC’s four day cultural festival ‘Crossroads’ that is proudly celebrating its ‘last party before forty’ kick started its first day with the‘shaan’dar performance of the singer cum stage performer Shantanu Mukherjee, commonly known as ‘Shaan’ at Encore. Shaan is best known for playback singing for top Bollywood actors, anchoring and dancing.
The concert though began an hour after the scheduled time, yet the singer’s charm and melodious voice made the audience soon forget about it all. Shaan took a heroic entry singing the famous lines ‘mujhko pehchaan lo, mai hu kaun?’ This was followed by a number of his soft romantic melodies including ‘Tune mujhe pehchana nahi’, ‘Chand Sifarish’ and ‘Jabse tere naina’.
The singer was seen building a nice rapport with the crowd, occasionally handing over them the mike and questioning them on how did the audience expect him to perform and if the audience wanted him to sing some famous composition of another music artist. The highest notches of the night were scaled with the performance of famous songs like ‘Woh pehli baar’ and ‘Tanha Dil’.
Acknowledging the new talent in industry, Shaan sang the chart buster Arijit Singh song ‘Tum hi ho’ from the movie ‘Aashiqui 2’ on public demand and referred it to be one of his favourite songs too. Not only did he sing romantic situational songs, but also flavoured up the night with peppy numbers like ‘Mai aissa kyon hu?, ‘Partner’, ‘Ladki kyon’ and ‘Chanda maama so gaye, ‘Koi kahe, kehta rahe’ all coming back to back without pauses.
The powerful performer not only did sing, but also entertained the audience with light hearted jokes on him ready to be called ‘Uncle’ by the audience and his ‘Jhalak Dikhla Ja’ dancing venture. Stating the reason for having taken him this long to come for a college performance in years, he expressed his apprehensions about the taste of the young generation in music, taking a dig at the current songs happening to do great in the market despite of any sense, being largely replete with cuss words and liquor.
“The genres of his music aren’t the favourites of many people today, but with his innocent looks, electric energy and commendable music, the performer was a fireball on stage.” said, Nidhi Bhalla, a second year DU student and Shaan fan.
At the end of the concert, the organising committee brought out a surprise. After viewing the trailer of Bewakoofiyaan, they made the announcement that Ayushmann Khurrana and Sonam Kapoor would be coming to promote their upcoming film on the last day of the fest i.e. 9th March. Their appearance is scheduled to happen at 4 p.m., before Sukhwinder Singh’s concert.
Well begun is half done. The performances scheduled for Day – II at SRCC include VJ Nikhil Chinappa, The Dualist Inquiry, Sharat Chandra, a classical violinist and Vlado Kreslin, a Slovenian folk rock musician. Enjoy!
Image Credit: Mehr Gill for DU Beat
